American Go E-Journal » 2016 » August

Bao Yun Clinches ’16 US Open Masters; Battle Underway for Runner-Up: There’s still one more round to play in the 2016 US Open Masters but the name of this year’s winner can already be inscribed: Bao Yun 7D. Bao defeated Song Zirui 1P Friday night by 3.5 points to build an unassailable 8-0 lead and clinch the 2016 title. The action now moves to the battle for second place. Zhang Hanchen will have to beat Ito Kenryo to take second place; if Ito wins, tiebreaks will determine the winner. In other Round 8 action, Andy Liu let certain victory against Zhang Hanchen slip away when he neglected to secure the life of a group in the endgame on Board 2 (click here for an sgf of the commentary by Feng Yun 9P and Yilun Yang 7P); Ito Kenryo 1P beat Ryan Li by half a point on Board 3, Eric Lui 1P defeated Sun Shuo 7d by 4.5 points on Board 4, Jian Zhongfan 7d beat Zhang Siyuan 7d by a half-point on 5 and Zhaonian Chen 7d won by 8.5 points over Albert Yen 7d on Board 6. Click here for the 2016 Masters Division crossgrid, with results and top-board game records. Click here for the US Open crosstab, updated through Round 5.

Diehard
Exactly 100 players ranging from the low 27 kyu to 7d decided they did not need a day off on Wednesday 8/3 — “because rest is for babies” — and gathered in the main playing room for the annual Diehard Tournament. Both Ted Lin 3k and Alexander Foti 4k were undefeated with four wins.

Pair GoClick here for a Facebook album of all this year’s pairs, and read here for the tournament story and results to find out who will be representing North America in the International Pair Go Championships in Japan!

Senior Cup
Visit live.gocongress.org for final tournament crosstabs. Chunlin Xu 7k won all four games to be the only undefeated player in the tournament.

Lightning Tournament
Players are on their own to find and complete their playoff games, and both the dan and kyu section playoffs have not yet reached the semi-final round. With just one more day left of play, will they complete before the end of the Go Congress? Will we be left without lightning champions? Stay tuned to find out!

The 2016 North American Pair Go Championship attracted 120 players, including seven professionals, on Thursday night. The overall champions this year are Gabriella Su 6d and Jeremy Chiu 7d (right), who will represent North America in the International Amateur Pair Go Championship in Tokyo in December. Always one of the most popular events of the week, Pair Go provides everyone an opportunity to play in a fun unrated tournament. Pair Go promotes the formation of partnerships which combine the diverse skills and personalities of each player. Since everyone can play, Pair Go is especially attractive for those who don’t play in the rest of the competitive tournaments during the Go Congress. The North American Pair Go Championship is supported by World Pair Go Association and the Japan Pair Go Association.

The top table of the tournament determined the overall champions. As with many of the tournaments at this year’s congress, the matches played on the top board of the tournament were recorded onto the Pandanet Go Server along with a live stream on the AGA’s Official YouTube page. Click here to see an album of photos of all of the pairs in the tournament.

As you might imagine, there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work that goes into broadcasting games from the annual US Go Congress, whether on KGS, Pandanet, YouTube or Twitch. Most of the time, everything works, and go fans around the world can follow the top-board action from the comfort of their own homes or at work.

But sometimes things go sideways. Like Thursday morning. With just minutes to go before the sixth round in the US Open Masters was scheduled to begin, and with Bao Yun and Ito Kenryo — the last two undefeated players left — seated at Board 1, the internet connection for the game recorder’s computers and the livestream feed went dead. The E-Journal team quickly scrambled to troubleshoot the problem, find workarounds and implement backup plans. The BU tech guys were called in, cables and adapters were swapped and software settings were rapidly reconfigured. As always, the priority was to ensure no disruption or distraction for the players while working to bring the best possible broadcast to viewers on the various platforms. At home, viewers probably didn’t even notice the 2-minute delay in the start of the round, which otherwise went off without a hitch. The way we like it.- Dennis Wheeler & Chris Garlock; photo by Garlock

It’s only August and already Hajin Lee has had one heck of a year. She got married, stepped down from her post as Secretary General of the International Go Federation, got promoted to 4-dan professional at the Korean Baduk Association and got accepted to an MBA program in Switzerland. Oh, and there was that whole AlphaGo thing.
The AlphaGo games against Lee Sedol in March came just before the end of Lee’s tenure at the IGF and the huge crush of media interest generated headlines and news reports around the world as hundreds of journalists descended on Seoul, where she’d spent years as a pro. “Working at that event was really crazy, it was one of the busiest times of my life, but it was still fun,” she said. In addition to witnessing the most massive promotion of go in the history of the game, Lee came away with a personal memento of the moment: “DeepMind sent me a beautiful set of Wedgewood tea cups and pots” for her wedding to fellow go player Dan Maas.

But the tea party will have to wait; Lee is moving to Switzerland this Fall to get an MBA focusing on international organizations. “When I applied for the program, I wanted to get some kind of job at the UN. But right now, I am open to other options because there are many organizations that do education or philanthropy work and I am mostly interested in those sectors,” building on her work at the IGF. “I really enjoyed working with the global community and the international context [at the IGF],” she told the E-Journal.

Lee was also recently promoted to 4P by the Korean Go Association. “In the Korean pro system, it’s a cumulative point system,” she explains. Her last promotion was to 3D in 2007. As for the question on many of her fans’ minds, Hajin — known for her popular go broadcasts as Haylee on YouTube — says this, “For the time being, my plan is to continue my YouTube broadcasts in Switzerland. The hope is to continue it for as long as I can.”- report/photos by Samantha Fede, E-Journal special correspondent, reporting from the 2016 U.S. Go Congress . photo: Lee with husband Dan Maas at the Pair Go tournament Thursday night at the 2016 US Go Congress; photo by Chris Garlock

The US Open Masters Division is the tournament for the best of the best, with the biggest prizes and most intense schedule. The invitational event, with 44 top players this year, is a 9-round event at the US Go Congress, with 6 rounds played at the same time as the US Open and an additional three rounds played Sunday, Tuesday and Friday nights. The new format replaced the 4-round North American Masters Tournament (NAMT) and the 4-round Strong Players Open in 2014. Eligibility in the Masters Division is limited to professionals, 7 Dan or stronger players and NAMT qualifiers. The top prize will be $5000 for first place, plus a $2000 for the top-placing North American Masters Tournament qualifier. Click here for the 2016 Masters Division crossgrid, with results and top-board game records.

Melissa Cao 4DAge: 13Lives in: New JerseyHome Club: Feng Yun Go SchoolYears playing go: 4Favorite thing about go: “I like how sometimes when you fight you get the outside, you get a wall and you’re able to use that wall to make territory and use that for other battles during the game.” Melissa said she’s mostly been playing that way this tournament, and that’s her typical style. “I usually like go because it helps my concentration too. Before I wouldn’t concentrate as much but after I’ve been playing go I would concentrate more.”

Edward Gillis 2DAge: 58Lives in: Boston, MAYears playing go: 44Favorite thing about go: “The rules are simple, but the strategy is complex. The margin between winning and losing is narrow so it makes it a good game from the point of view of developing strategies.” Edward used to play chess, but transitioned to go at a young age. “I like go better than chess because it seems more universal. It’s simple rules, you can cultivate a sense of attack and defense or who has the ability to force his opponent (sente). I only heard about go much later than chess. I was making a go board for myself in high school shop class. It turns out my [math] teacher was a go player, so I advanced rapidly. That got me a good start, so I was lucky.”

- report/photos by Samantha Fede, E-Journal special correspondent, reporting from the 2016 U.S. Go Congress

Bao the One to Beat: Yun Bao 7d prevailed over Kenryo Ito 1P Thursday morning in the sixth round of the US Open Masters, giving the “Blindfold Go” master a 6-0 record with just three rounds to go. The game was hard-fought by both players, with Ito in a dramatic byo-yomi that had viewers on the edge of their seats. Click here for the game record and here for the livestream broadcast on the AGA’s YouTube channel. Bao has beaten the players with 5-1 records — Andy Liu, Hanchen Zhang, and Eric Lui — so unless something unusual happens in the next couple of rounds, he’s the odds-on favorite to win the 2016 US Open Masters title. Of course, there remain strong opponents who will try to block Bao in the next three rounds; see below for the schedule. Complete US Open Masters results through Round 6 and top-board game records here. Click here for the US Open crosstab, updated through Round 4.

Michael Chen 8d and Melissa Cao 4d won the top table at Youth Adult Pair Go on Tuesday at the Go Congress. The event was a big hit with both young and old, drawing 56 players to the Youth Room. Seven tables competed, with first and second place at each table winning prizes, including go books donated by several publishers, Hikaru no Go manga, and several new sets of various anime series donated by Winston Jen. Devin Fraze has taken over in the Youth Room this year, allowing longtime organizer Paul Barchilon to actually play in the event, pictured below with his partner, 5 year old Tselmuun Ganbaatar (who was violating all known standards of Pair Go rules and etiquette by telling her partner how it important it was for him to play where she told him). Every table saw exciting games, many with giggling kids – and astonished adults as the kids outplayed everyone nonetheless. Other events in the Youth Room included lightning go on Sunday, 9×9 and 13×13 tourneys on Monday, and relay go on Thursday. One youngster said he enjoyed relay go the most, because he “really likes to run.” Fraze, whose day job is teaching fifth grade, was clearly up to the challenge of managing so many kids at once.

AlphaGo has brought go global attention but it’s organizations like the American Go Association that must now figure out how best to capitalize on the new interest in the game. Anyone with questions about the AGA, or who would like to find out more about how you can get involved in promoting go, should plan to attend at least one of the AGA’s organizational meetings on Friday and Saturday at the US Go Congress.

On Friday at 2p, AGA leadership will meet with strong players to discuss issues of concern to them, include the latest on the postponement of the World Mind Sports Games. On Friday at 3p, the AGA board of directors convenes its Congress board meeting. All attendees are welcome and encouraged to observe. From 4:30 to 5:30p, AGA’s IT man and web admin Steve Colburn will be available to discuss the AGA’s website and Internet presence.

Then on Saturday, at 2p, find out what’s involved in hosting a Go Congress in your area. “It’s fun and easy,” promises AGA president Andy Okun. At 3p, the AGA Chapter Assembly — comprised of representatives on the AGA’s chapters — meets.
The agenda includes discussion of the chapter rewards program, future Congress hosting ideas, plus next year’s Congress.

All meetings will be held in Room 312 in Boston University’s George Sherman Union. For further info, email Okun at president@usgo.orgphoto: DC-area organizers meet to plan to new National Go Center, earlier this week at the US Go Congress; photo by Chris Garlock

Demonstrating the continuing fascination with all things AlphaGo, it was standing-room-only on Thursday afternoon at the US Go Congress when Fan Hui 2P presented a detailed commentary on Game Five of the AlphaGo-Lee Sedol match. Blending his trademark self-deprecating humor and intense commitment to the game, Fan — who was the first pro to play AlphaGo in October 2015 — illustrated some of the key parts of the game with ideas and comments he’s gleaned from reviews with many other professionals including Gu Li 9P, as well as AlphaGo’s own estimates of where Lee Sedol should have played. Although many of the proposed moves were not terribly sure in Fan’s estimate, he joked that “One thing for sure is that AlphaGo thinks it’s good for white, so I think so too,” drawing a laugh from the audience.

DeepMind is due to release commentaries on games one and two as well in the coming weeks, for which Fan gave brief trailers. In conclusion, Fan said AlphaGo had not just changed the course of go history, but the day-to-day lives of go players around the world. “Before, when you told friends or family members you play go, they’d look at you in puzzlement and ask what go is. Now they know it’s the game in the famous ‘Man versus Machine’ match. Now you can be proud to say ‘I am a go player.’”

In a brief presentation before the lecture, American Go E-Journal Managing Editor Chris Garlock and AGA president Andy Okun made both Fan and AlphaGo programmer Aja Huang honorary members of the E-Journal team “in appreciation for your incredible work publicizing go to a global audience,” presenting them with E-Journal caps. They — along with Garlock — were also given letters by the Empty Sky Go Club’s Steve Colburn from members of go clubs in Upstate New York thanking the entire AlphaGo team for making go “worldwide headline news” and “breaking a barrier that has not been seen in the world of go until now.” Huang and Fan then signed the lids of two go bowls that will be auctioned off at the Congress closing night banquet to benefit the American Go Foundation.- Andy Okun; photo by Todd Heidenreich